Rick Altman was born in 1945 in Louisiana and is a professor at the University of Iowa Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature. He proposed a theory that film genres work through both a semantic approach focusing on how media elements like characters, music, and setting are presented, and a syntactic approach examining the underlying narrative structure and relationships between characters and settings. He later expanded his theory to also consider the pragmatic aspect of how real-world institutions and audiences impact genres.

1. Rick
Altman

2. Rick Altman was born on the 9th January 1945 in
Louisiana, United States. He is a professor at
the University of Iowa, United States of Cinema
and Comparative Literature in the Department of
Cinema and Comparative Literature.
He proposed a theory that had a semantic and syntactic approach to film genres and
these are the 2 ways he proposed film genre to work.
Semantic + Syntactic =
Better Understanding

3. Semantic
Semantic is the way that the media is presented, e.g. The way characters are
presented(clothing, makeup, attitude, body language, etc, music(tempo and pitch),
setting, it adds to the storyline, etc. Basically it’s the materials.
Syntactic
Syntactic is the overlying structure, deeper meaning basically the arrangement
describing all about the relationship between the character and the setting/structure
or narrative in genres.
He went on further to develop his theory by
adding the aspect of pragmatic , the addition of
consideration of the institutions and audience –
the effect of the real world on genre.